Behind the tall, foreboding gates of a commune in Brazil, Daniella Mestyanek Young was raised in the religious cult the Children of God, also known as The Family. Beholden to The Family’s strict rules, Daniella suffered physical, emotional, and sexual abuse-masked as godly discipline and divine love-and was forbidden from getting a traditional education.

At fifteen years old, fed up with The Family and determined to build a better and freer life, Daniella escaped to Texas. She bravely enrolled in high school and then joined the military, where she believed she would finally belong. But she soon learned that her new world-surrounded by men on the sands of Afghanistan-looked remarkably similar to the one she desperately tried to leave behind.

In the vein of Educated and The Glass Castle, Uncultured explores the dangers unleashed when harmful group mentality goes unrecognised, and is emblematic of the many ways women must contort themselves to survive